humility

Humility responds to God's will-to the fear of His judgments and to the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts. Someone has said, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."

In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride. It is always considered as a sin. We are not speaking of a wholesome view of self-worth, which is best established by a close relationship with God. But we are speaking of pride as the universal sin, as someone has described it. . . . Essentially, pride is a "my will" rather than "thy will" approach to life. The opposite of pride is humbleness, meekness, submissiveness, or teachableness.

God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble. . . . We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we are. . . . We can choose to humble ourselves by receiving counsel and chastisement, . . . by forgiving those who have offended us, . . . by rendering selfless service, . . . by going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others, . . . by getting to the temple more frequently, [and] by confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God. . . . We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God, adjusting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives.

In the 1940s while serving as the executive officer of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives in Washington, D.C., I saw in a Hilton Hotel a placard depicting Uncle Sam, representing America, on his knees in humility and prayer. Beneath the placard was the inscription, "Not beaten there by the hammer and sickle, but freely, responsibly, confidently. . . . We need fear nothing or no one save God." That picture has stayed in my memory ever since; America on her knees in recognition that all our blessings come from God! America on her knees out of a desire to serve the God of this land by keeping his commandments! America on her knees, not driven there in capitulation to some despotic government, but on her knees freely, willingly, gratefully! This is the sovereign remedy to all of our problems and the preservation of our liberties.

Life is but an unfair circle, intertwined among the ruins of my salvation as a soul of this universe. My humble despair deserves no such fate; perhaps sometime in the near distant future I may live to say 'this really sucks!'"